For a brief moment the person came to his mind is The Cult Leader, Malgath Voruum .
But then his mind got distracted his gaze shiftedd to the Forbidden Vault.
The path to the Forbidden Vault had long been hidden, spoken of only in fragments and silence. A sliver of stone remained where a once-grand stairwell had sunk into the mountain's throat, devoured by time and sealed away from even the cult's most ancient records.
Yet Lucius had found it—not by guidance, but by instinct.
No torch lit his way. No marking guided his feet. It was the Twilight Qi burning within his meridians that had pulsed whenever he neared, and the Abyssal Fang at his waist that had trembled when the mountain began to breathe.
And now he stood before it.
The Sealed Vault of Shadows.
Not a door—no hinges, no lock. Just a towering slab of black stone streaked with veins of crimson and violet that pulsed like blood beneath cracked skin. Runes covered its surface, each one foreign, yet familiar. They shifted as he looked at them, not in form, but in meaning. Every second glance brought a new understanding—fragmented, incomplete.
The very air seemed heavier here.
Lucius exhaled slowly. The breath came out shaky, uneven. His injuries from the day before—when he'd fought the Transcendent assassin—had not yet healed. A rib throbbed with every movement, and the backlash of unbalancing his Twilight Qi during the fight had left his inner world in chaos. He'd barely managed to suppress the damage using crude fire-forging meditation under the shelter of a jagged cave wall.
Now, standing here, the Fang pulsing faintly against his side, Lucius felt something else.
A presence.
Not watching him from afar. Watching through him.
He clenched his fists.
"This gate…" he whispered. "Why do I feel like I've been here before?"
No one answered. But the runes did. The pulsing veins of the vault throbbed more violently. The symbols brightened with a flash of twilight color—a mix of setting sun and encroaching night.
Lucius took a step forward. The stone beneath his boot cracked faintly.
Each movement stirred his injuries, but he pressed on, step after deliberate step, until he stood inches from the Vault's face.
And then—
A voice.
Soft. Feminine. Ancient.
"Lucius Ashborne."
He turned sharply, hand dropping toward the Fang.
A woman stood atop a jagged outcrop to his left. Her figure cloaked in frayed white, her face hidden beneath a porcelain mask cracked along the cheek. Her presence was cold, but not hostile.
Lucius narrowed his eyes.
"You're not Council. Who are you?"
The woman descended the stone without a sound. Each movement effortless, flowing like mist over ice.
"A remnant. A witness." Her voice was calm, but hollow, like a wind echoing through a long-dead temple. "I was born from the sealing of this Vault. I remain until it opens."
Lucius straightened. His qi flared slightly—just enough to remind her that he wasn't some wandering initiate.
"Then speak clearly. Are you here to stop me?"
"No," she said. "I'm here to offer you clarity before you choose madness."
Lucius tilted his head. "I've seen madness. Fought it. I carry its shadow. And still, I walk."
"Then you are already marked."
She gestured to the Vault.
"This gate doesn't open with force. It opens with resonance. With surrender. With recognition."
Lucius hesitated.
"Surrender?"
"You must let go of what you think you are."
"I've already burned away what I was."
"Then you are closer than most."
Her words weren't praise. They were confirmation—of something inevitable.
Lucius turned back toward the Vault. The runes had begun to pulse with faster rhythm now, as if echoing his heartbeat.
He lifted a hand and pressed his palm against the stone.
The moment flesh met surface, reality twisted.
A scream—not heard, but felt—tore through his mind.
Lucius staggered back, clutching his skull. The Twilight Qi inside him erupted, writhing out of control, crashing against his already-damaged core.
The Vault responded with force.
Visions assaulted him.
Flashes.
—A boy, no older than ten, shackled in chains of starlight and abyss. His eyes wide, mouth open in silent defiance as flames danced across his skin.
—A battlefield strewn with corpses—gods, demons, and something else—lesser and greater all dead beneath a bleeding sun.
—A sword with no edge, made not of metal but of memory and flame, spinning through the void and leaving behind silence.
—Himself. Older. Stoic. Surrounded by whispers and blood.
"Lucius."
A voice. Ancient. Genderless.
"Why do you seek what was buried?"
He tried to answer, but the words wouldn't come. His mouth moved, but no sound emerged.
The Fang at his waist screamed.
Not aloud—but in resonance.
He doubled over. His meridians flared. Blood spurted from his nose and ears. The Twilight Qi turned black for a moment—an unnatural fusion. His heart seized.
"I—don't—" he choked.
Then the Vault pulsed again.
The rune at its center burned white.
A pressure like gravity crushed him to his knees.
"You are not ready," the voice echoed. "But you will be."
The woman appeared beside him, kneeling.
Lucius struggled to focus. His limbs felt like stone. The world was spinning.
"Help… me…"
She pulled something from her robe.
A shard.
It pulsed faintly.
Lucius's eyes widened. It looked like the Fang—but rawer, older. A primordial seed.
"This is an Abyssal Root," she said. "The origin of the Fang. The echo before the scream."
Lucius barely nodded.
"Bind it to your core," she warned, pressing it to his chest. "But understand—this is not strength. This is understanding. This is descent."
The shard vanished into his body.
Lucius screamed.
Flames erupted from his chest—violet and black.
The Root threaded itself into his dantian. The Twilight Qi surged, engulfed the darkness, and something new was born. His body convulsed. His spirit trembled.
And then—he collapsed.
The Vault's runes dimmed.
The storm above quieted.
And Lucius lay still, unconscious, on the ground.
The masked woman stood slowly.
"So it begins again."
She turned her gaze toward the east, where the first hints of dawn were breaking through the ash-colored clouds.
"Sleep, heir of contradiction. When next you wake, the Vault will whisper your name.
The Vault's runes slowly pulsed one final time—faintly, like a dying heartbeat. A few sparks of violet mist rose from the ground, dancing around Lucius's still form before vanishing into the stone.
The masked woman remained where she stood, unmoving, a solitary warden in a place where even echoes dared not linger.
But behind the mask, her breath trembled.
Not in fear, but recognition.
She lowered herself beside Lucius again and placed two fingers on his pulse. His skin was ice-cold. His heart stuttered, missing every other beat. And yet… there was something beneath his ribcage now. A second rhythm. Unnatural. Fragmented. Alive.
"You carry it now," she whispered, brushing blood from his forehead. "The Root has taken hold. And the Vault… acknowledged you."
She looked at the closed gate.
The runes were dark again. But they had moved.
A new symbol had appeared, etched in the lower right corner—twilight-shaped, a blade curling into a spiral, surrounded by nine circles.
She traced it with gloved fingers. Her body recoiled the instant she made contact, her arm shuddering violently. A shallow wound opened across her palm, bleeding black ichor.
She hissed.
"Foolish child," she muttered, staring down at Lucius. "You opened what even the Founder feared."
The wind stirred.
Far above, a gust swept through the Hollowed Peaks, and for a moment, the sky seemed to split. Not literally—but something in the air changed. An unseen gaze fell over the land. The Vault felt it too. The air grew cold. Not natural cold, but spiritual—like the sensation of being watched by something that didn't blink.
The masked woman stood quickly.
Far below the peaks, distant bells rang from the Ember Vault's tower.
They'd sensed it.
"They will come now."
She turned her gaze to the valley below. In the far east, lights stirred. Movement. The Council would send someone. A response team. Perhaps Seris. Perhaps something worse.
The woman knelt again, slipping a silver-threaded sigil onto Lucius's wrist—a sealing ward, but not to suppress his power. It would mask it.
"Sleep, boy. If they see what's begun in you now, they won't let you leave this mountain alive."
She stood, stepping into the swirling mist as it returned, swallowing her like a cloak.
Within moments, she was gone.
And Lucius remained alone before the Vault.
But not truly alone.
Within his dantian, something stirred.
In the dreamless dark, Lucius's consciousness floated, weightless.
He couldn't feel his body. He wasn't even sure if he had one. He drifted through an abyss without direction—only sensation. Cold. Heat. Pain. Hunger. And resonance. A thrum, pulsing from deep within him, as if his soul had become a tuning fork for something beyond mortal comprehension.
Then, slowly, sound.
A whisper.
"Lucius…"
It was his voice.
But not his own.
"Lucius Ashborne… wake."
A landscape unfolded around him.
Gray skies. Mountains burned black. A wasteland covered in ash. Figures marched through the haze—faceless, silent, carrying weapons made of smoke. A ruined city stood ahead, half-submerged in molten shadow.
At the center stood a throne carved from dragonbone and obsidian. Chained to it sat a figure.
A boy.
Eyes shut. Wrists bound. A sword impaled through his chest.
Lucius stepped forward, but the world rejected him—time distorted, space bent. Every step brought him no closer.
Still, the boy opened his eyes.
And they were his.
"You brought the Root," the boy said, voice ragged. "And so the Gate has opened. Not fully. Not yet. But the first echo has been set."
Lucius stared. "Who are you?"
"I am what you will become… if you cannot bear it."
The ground trembled.
"The Root does not give strength. It takes. It remembers. And it judges."
The boy began to vanish—chains pulling him deeper into the throne, flames licking up his arms.
"The next time we speak… it won't be in dreams."
The vision shattered.
Lucius's eyes snapped open.
He coughed violently, his body spasming. Blood trickled from his lips, but he was breathing. He was alive.
And the Vault?
Still sealed.
But now, a faint crack ran along the surface.
Small.
Insignificant.
And yet… irreversible.
Lucius struggled to his feet. Every muscle screamed. The sigil on his wrist glowed faintly, masking his signature, cloaking him from the senses of those watching the mountains.
He turned back toward the path he'd come from.
His body was broken. His mind shaken.
But something new stirred within his core.
A second rhythm.
A beat that pulsed alongside the Fang.
The Root had taken hold.
He didn't smile.
He didn't cry.
But he knew—
The world would never be the same again.
[End of Chapter 27]